Obama Administration Creating African American Education Office

President Obama has an 89 percent approval rating in the black community, and although that’s pretty high, it’s still down from the 95 percent approval rating he had when he took office.

After murmurings that President Obama isn’t doing enough for black people, and some high profile criticism from Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, it appears that the Obama administration is gearing up to add African Americans to its agenda.

President Obama is creating an African-American education office, designed to support the education of African-American students. The White House says that the new office will coordinate the efforts of communities and agencies to ensure that African American youth are prepared for high school, college, and eventually, a career.

The Associated Press reports that the goal of the office will be to create “a more effective continuum” of programs for African-American students.

Obama announced his education initiative Wednesday night in a speech to the National Urban League, as he worked to rally black voters for the 2012 election.

On Wednesday, President Obama said he is creating the office “so that every child has greater access to a complete and competitive education from the time they’re born all through the time they get a career.”

From his speech:

And that’s why we’re pushing all colleges and universities to cut their costs. Because we can’t keep asking taxpayers to subsidize skyrocketing tuition. A higher education in the 21st century cannot be a luxury. It is a vital necessity that every American should be able to afford. I want all these young people to be getting a higher education, and I don’t want them loaded up with tens of thousands of dollars of debt just to get an education. That’s how we make America great.

President Obama also used the speech to encourage American kids to work harder since they are no competing in a global economy.

The only reason this is being done now is because the Obama administration realizes that the political decision to ignore black voters might backfire on them on election day. They can no longer tell the lie that they are just as concern about issues related to black Americans as with white women, Hispanics, gays and even racist teabaggers. IMO the policy of disrespect and ignore black voters was mainly done to appeal to white voters that will probably not vote for him anyway.

Thanks to West, Smiley, Watkins and others the organized effort by some in this administration and their drones in the media to shut down any legitimate criticism of this president by black voters wasn’t completely successful. That’s the only reason they are creating a African American Education Office. After three years of telling us no special attention for our issues but singling black people out for special criticism, I’m not crazy about voting for him again. All this new found attention tells me this election is a lot closer than they are letting on. I wish there was another party to select from rather than always choosing the lesser evil.

Excellent post, David 2001. i’m definitely voting third party in writing in a different candidate. The Obama Administration and Democratic party ASSumed they could downplay, silence, criticize, and ignore the black vote. Now for months before the election, this initiative is nothing more than a ploy for votes.